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Create Your Dream Kitchen Mood Board in 5 Simple Steps
By: Andrew Saladino | 
min
The first step after you decide to remodel or build your own kitchen is to gather inspiration. In the age of Instagram and Pinterest, it’s easy to save or pin images of your dream kitchen designs. However, with the amount of content that you can find on social media, figuring out what’s best for your own space can get overwhelming.
Creating your own mood board, whether that’s digital or "scrapbook style" with scissors and glue, will give you a better sense of what your kitchen can look like and what your preferred style is. If you don’t live alone, having a mood board can be helpful when discussing design ideas with your roommate or partner. It will also help with giving direction to your interior designer or contractor.
Let’s dive into the steps and benefits of creating a mood board for your kitchen remodel!
Why Creating a Mood Board
Can Be Helpful
A mood board is a collection of images, textures, or objects that inspire you. Mood boards are often used in fashion and interior design as they help the designer get an idea of which colors and textures match before they commit to the final look. It’s especially helpful when you have a blank slate (like in a fixer-upper home you’re renovating from scratch), but it’s also a great tool when remodeling your existing kitchen.
A mood board can also help you pick out samples for your backsplash, floors, or cabinets. Simply reference your mood board to see what materials will best turn your vision into reality when looking for samples. Since you’ll have a general idea of what you want your kitchen to look like, a mood board can even assist you with budgeting. For instance, if your mood board included a gorgeous white marble countertop but you’re now running into budgeting issues, you may realize that a quartz countertop looks almost the same but comes with a much lower price tag.
How to Create a Mood Board
for Your Kitchen
In order to create a mood board that will bring across your dream kitchen vision, you can follow these steps:
- Gather inspiration: Before you start writing down lists or making any plans with contractors, it’s helpful to browse for inspiration. You can find kitchen inspiration on social media, in your favorite magazine, or even on TV. Save images and videos that make you feel good without questioning how you could achieve the same design in your home. This step should be fun, innocent, and get your creative juices flowing.
- Vet your choices: Now that you have collected a variety of kitchen designs and details, go through the pictures again and only pick the ones that are your favorites. During this step, you should also be able to detect a pattern and figure out what your personal design style is.
- Make a list: This step is especially important when you’re remodeling your kitchen. Take a look at the space and decide what can stay and what needs to go. Use our printable checklist to get an idea of everything a kitchen remodel can entail. If you’re on a budget, you can use this time to research how much change you’ll be able to afford but you can also go about this step after your mood board is finished and you can clearly see which items are most important to you.
- Decide between digital or analog: Do you like crafting? You can create a mood board on a piece of paper with magazine cutouts and prints of your favorite images or even use a pinboard if you wish to rearrange the pieces more easily. If you’re tech-savvy or simply prefer working on a computer, use PowerPoint or a free design tool like Canva to create your mood board digitally.
- Put your mood board together: Grab your checklist and sort through your collection of visuals. If you have a favorite kitchen, you can use the entire image for your mood board and add details around it. If multiple images caught your eye, cut out your favorite parts and assemble them on your mood board. You can circle your favorite details and make notes. If you’re crafting your mood board with glue and scissors, make sure to rearrange and exchange the cutouts before committing to glue.
You can always create multiple mood boards. For some people it can be helpful to start with a digital mood board, then print it out and add cutouts and notes to it. If you’re still indecisive, you can create a third mood board with samples. That way you can experiment with the look and feel of your design before ordering your whole kitchen set.
Our printable will help you stay organized while creating a mood board for your kitchen remodel. Use it as a checklist while you're looking for inspiration or later on when you're ordering new appliances, cabinets, and products to make sure everything is set once construction begins.
Create Your Kitchen Mood Board
Step by Step
There’s more to assembling your mood board than just dragging and dropping pictures into a file or gluing cut out magazine pages onto a piece of paper. The more organized you go about this step, the more you’ll benefit from it when shopping and assembling your new kitchen. Read on to learn about the basics you’ll need to keep in mind when designing your dream kitchen mood board.
1. Design Style, Colors and Layout
Some of the most popular kitchen design styles are farmhouse, modern, and contemporary. You can take a style quiz to find out what your design style is. Sometimes this can help you to feel more confident in your design choice. However, if all the inspiration you gathered clearly shows you one design style, you can skip this step and move right on to choosing a color palette.
Your color palette should reflect the design style you chose. A modern farmhouse kitchen usually has a more neutral color palette with pops of color like teal or red. The color palette for a coastal kitchen design should include a sandy base color and blue accent hues. A traditional kitchen doesn’t have to coincide with a dark color palette. You can give it a modern twist by using gray as your base color and adding navy blue or olive green accents.
The layout of your kitchen is another crucial step in your design. Tearing down walls to create an open concept kitchen can add value to your home and life as your kitchen becomes a focal point instead of being tucked away. If you prefer cooking without an audience, you may like the cozy charm of a galley kitchen. For anyone who hasn’t decided on a kitchen layout yet, KCK offers free 3D Kitchen Design to help you figure out a design that will make your wildest kitchen dreams come true.
2. Cabinets
Your cabinets are the core of the kitchen. They hold all of your food, cook-, and dishware and make up the majority of your kitchen space. You can choose between ready to assemble (RTA) or pre-assembled cabinets but also get custom cabinetry if you have a higher budget or perhaps a space that requires a custom design. High-quality RTA cabinets won’t break the bank and leave plenty of budget for you to invest in other upgrades like new appliances or a kitchen island.
Since your cabinets will define the style of the kitchen, it makes sense to decide on them early on in your design process and figure out if they’ll compliment the other design features you have in mind. A kitchen with gray cabinets will look best with a white countertop that brightens up the room. If you’re in love with the idea of having a butcher block countertop, pick a cabinet color that will complement the natural wood-like white shaker cabinets.
3. Cabinet Hardware, Sink and Faucet
Once you’ve chosen cabinetry, make sure to find hardware that elevates your style. The hardware you pick for your cabinets should match or complement the sink and faucet. For example, white shaker cabinets will look great with silver or black handles or knobs. To achieve a cohesive look, you can choose a white farmhouse style sink and match the color of your hardware to your faucet.
4. Backsplash
A backsplash can be solely functional or it can be a statement piece. If you are dreaming of a farmhouse kitchen, maybe you love the idea of a shiplap backsplash or white subway tile that wraps around your kitchen walls. If your design style is eclectic or glamorous, your backsplash could be an extravagant tile covering an entire wall up to the ceiling that gives your kitchen the wow factor it deserves.
5. Countertops
Picking the perfect countertop to compliment your flooring, cabinets and backsplash is vital. If you’re looking for a classy countertop that goes with almost any style white marble or subtle granite are great choices.
Butcher block can bring charm into your kitchen and will look amazing in a farmhouse or modern style space. If you’re looking for a unique, contemporary look, consider a concrete countertop.
For an extremely durable, affordable and chic finish, opt for quartz or quartzite, a material that’s low maintenance and has gained popularity in recent years as it is similarly dazzling to the more expensive marble.
6. Appliances
When remodeling a kitchen, consider the age and functionality of your appliances before splurging on new ones. They can easily eat away the largest chunk of your budget. However, new appliances may also make or break your kitchen design and boost the functionality of the space. If your appliances are outdated, splurge on new ones. If they’re still working fine and will fit the design of your new kitchen, keep them and use the money you saved for another upgrade.
7. Light Fixtures
Light fixtures are an important and often overlooked design element. If you love a statement piece, go for bold overhead pendant lights above your kitchen island. Think about adding indirect under cabinet lighting so your kitchen can become a cozy place to hang out in with friends and enjoying a glass of wine.
8. Kitchen Decor
While your mood board may look done, it’s likely still missing a few accents. Simple elements like a large plant, a colorful rug, rustic open shelving, or a wall-mounted indoor herb garden will not only make your kitchen look amazing but will also add the final touches to your mood board. This will put the cherry on top of the cake that is your vision and give you a true glimpse of what your kitchen will look like when it’s finished.
Kitchen Mood Board Inspiration
If you're looking for more design inspiration before creating your own kitchen mood board, we've covered some of the most popular and interesting design styles below.
Sleek, Bright and Clean
Source: Daisy and Daydreams
If you like a sleek, bright, and clean design, this modern kitchen with white shaker cabinets may be a great base for your mood board.
You can highlight the features you like and add details like a Victorian chic backsplash to create a mood board that reflects what your new kitchen should look like.
Rustic meets Modern
Source: Cozy Happy Home
The farmhouse design is a popular choice for kitchen remodels. This picture of a cute modern farmhouse inspired kitchen may be a great piece of inspiration for your kitchen mood board.
Add rustic hardwood flooring and state of the art appliances and you’ve got yourself a kitchen design that makes all your dreams come true!
A True Showstopper
Source: Centered by Design
A well-designed eclectic kitchen can be a showstopper.
If you like designs that are a bit out of the ordinary, this photograph of beautiful dark shaker cabinets and open glass shelving can be the inspiration for a kitchen mood board that will make you want to live in it. Just add some additional features like black and white tile flooring to create a design that’s truly unique.
Turn a Mood Board into
Your Dream Kitchen
A beautiful mood board is the perfect stepping stone to build your dream kitchen. Now that you have a clear vision of what you like and know that the materials you’ve chosen will look and feel great together, you can go ahead and plan the construction.
We’ve created another helpful printable for you that includes a full checklist of what it takes to build or remodel your kitchen. It will give you a better idea of each necessary step and how long it will take until you can cook your first meal or host a party around your new kitchen island. Keep in mind that the time frames in the printable are suggestions and it depends on your contractor or, if you’re doing the remodel on your own, your experience, how long the construction will take.
Finally, if you love the mood board you created, frame it and hang it up as a piece of art that reminds you of the hard work you put into designing your own kitchen.
Make sure you take your time deciding on a design that you love. After all, your new kitchen should be one you love to cook and gather in for years to come. We’re happy to assist you with a free layout consultation and samples to help you determine which cabinets are perfect for your new kitchen.
